Leaving Home
by white lotus
Summary: Wakka makes amends for his big, stupid mouth.


**A/N - **Mah First Final Fantasy X fic... Takes place during and after the destruction of Home. sniff There's a good deal of interpretation from the game, and mostly, all the original stuff doesn't kick in until about half-way through. This is the conversation that apparently doesn't exist, but I wish did. Wakka's a cute guy. Rikku's a cute chick. Put 'em together and you got one uber-cute friendship couple. … Bordering on a thousand words.

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**Leaving Home - **A Final Fantasy X Drabble

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"What's goin' on?"

"We're... We're going to blow up our Home," Rikku whispered. There was a note of desperate disbelief, like her heart wasn't quite ready to accept what her mind was telling her.

Lulu arched a meticulously plucked eyebrow. "How?"

"With one of the forbidden machina!" Cid announced, gesticulating wildly at his son. _"Nayto? Vena!" _

Wakka never liked machina. The damned devices went against the teachings of Yevon, against the ways of the Yevonites, and ever since Chappu went off and… No, dislike wasn't really a strong enough word, ya. He _despised_ machina, hated them with a passion equal to the boundless affection he'd had for his brother, and now, watching Rikku turn away from the windows to bury her face in her hands, feeling the airship shudder menacingly as her brother jabbed mournfully at the control pad before him, Wakka realised the extent of his loathing was beyond even his own comprehension. Why, oh _why_ in Yevon's name was he aboard this abomination?

Horrified fascination seized him in the gut as the missiles were guided at a terrifying speed towards the smoke-ridden structure of Home.

There was a rift, as though the gods had momentarily swallowed sound, time and space.

Rikku's cry drowned fitfully in the thunderous roar of the explosion.

The shockwave spread, a deadly flower unfolding its petals in extreme fast-forward, engulfing anything unfortunate enough to hinder its path.

Like the airship.

Wakka caught himself muttering prayers that he had no idea he remembered how to say as the sky was dyed the colour of blood and around him, the plane shuddered like a frightened creature fleeing for its life. For _their_ lives. He was struck by the urgent desire to tell Lulu something incredibly important.

Rikku's brother wrenched at the controls, yelped something in Al Bhed and suddenly the sky was blue again, the system was stable and they were all thankfully, wonderfully alive. Once Wakka got off this thing, he would never fly again. If humans were meant for the sky, Yevon would have given them wings, ya?

The aircraft streaked towards the azure heavens, providing them one last view of the absolute devastation shrouded in a frantic storm of sand and grit below.

_"Gah-hah-hah-hah! Nadinh du cyht!"_ Cid declared, pumping a fist. He seemed far too unconcerned for his front to be convincing. Deep down, some part of him was dying too.

Rikku chewed on her lip and looked utterly wretched.

If this was what machina were capable of, then surely, Sin was divine justice.

Wakka found himself floundering for something with which to comfort the Al Bhed girl. _Reach. Scrabble, scrabble._ "Hey, look. Don't get so down. Boom! Like happy festival fireworks, ya?" He knew the words were wrong as soon as they left his lips.

Rikku fixed him with a blazing, viridescent glare that held tears, unshed and unashamed. "You can cram your happy festival, you big meanie!"

_Oops. Slip, plummet._

She marched off to the other side of the bridge, furious and miserable.

Tidus winced at Wakka and joined him, scratching the back of his blond head like he did whenever he was embarrassed or confused. "She's a girl," he said, as if that explained everything. "Girls tend to get over-emotional, I think."

"Lulu teach you that?"

The two turned to regard for a moment, the black mage who took on the Spira with a constant air of indifference, a sexy set of stockings and permanent state of PMS.

"Yeah."

Wakka sighed despondently. "Should have just kept my big, stupid mouth shut."

"Don't worry," Tidus gave him a friendly slap on the back. "We all screw up sometimes. I'm sure Rikku won't take it personally. In the meantime, we gotta find Yuna!" Anxious to the point of hyperactivity, the kid bounded up to Cid to consult their navigation system and map-machina-thingy - what was it called? A sphere oscillo-finder...? What an unpleasant mouthful!

Cid chuckled nervously. "It's an ancient machina. I don't know how it works either, so don't ask me, okay?"

If Lulu's eyebrows were going to rise any higher, they'd vanish off her face and flutter away. "And you still use it?"

This was met with a mirthless laugh. "I don't even rightly know how this rig flies, either! All because of the Yevon taboo on machina, we're running around in the dark here! Ain't it a rush, kiddos?"

Oh, _man._ Wakka suddenly realised how _high up_ they were, how _unstable_ the weather could be and how the only things between Wakka in one piece up here and Wakka becoming a splattered, Wakka-ish smear on the face of Spira was a metal floor that couldn't be thick enough and a good several thousand feet of empty air.

Stay back. Don't go to near that window, man, it's not safe.

Turning back, he was just in time to see Rikku's gaze dart away, still petulant and unhappy, but perhaps hopeful for a bit of reconciliation. Wakka took the initiative and wandered (rather unsteadily) over, taking a seat beside her at a set of coloured terminals and intricate controls. An awkward pause prodded impatiently at them. Wakka wished she would speak first: he didn't have much confidence in his skill with words - or his ability to stop himself being sick all over the person he was supposed to be apologising to.

"You don't look so good," she observed quietly.

"Nah, man. Ain't used to flyin'. I'm more of a sailor, ya?"

Her eyes lit up. "Really? I sail too, kinda. We had these huge under-water machina that could travel for _weeks_. They were like moving... Moving... Homes..." She drooped visibly at these words, staring down at her hands.

"Hey, hey." Wakka tired to sound cheerful despite his stomach turning somersaults. "Don't let it get to ya, man. Thing about machina is, you can rebuild 'em. Start over. Make it bigger and better than before. And this time, you'll have friends to help! I'll even help, if you want."

"Friends..." Rikku seemed to turn the word over on her tongue as if trying to figure out what it tasted like.

"Ya, like what Tidus said. That's what friends are for. We stick together, ya?"

"So... So..." She paused, tentatively testing out new ground. "So, you'd call me your friend?"

"Don't see why not."

"But... I thought you didn't like Al Bhed,"

Truth be told, he didn't. And he still wasn't entirely open to the idea of befriending them, but this one, she wasn't so bad. She was... Different. Pure. Something about her wanted protection, an insurance that she wouldn't have to suffer like this ever again.

"I guess I still can't forgive the machina for what happened to my brother," Wakka confessed. "Some wounds run a little too deep. But somewhere along the way, this little Al Bhed girl, see, she came up to me and she… She taught me a few things. And I thought, 'Hey Wakka. These Al Bhed, you know. They're all right.'"

Rikku's lips twitched. "I'm... I'm sorry I called you a big meanie."

Wakka fought the urge to laugh at the childish phrase. Meanie? When was the last time someone called him that? Nevertheless, relief washed over him like a warm, scented bath and strangely enough, the queasiness in his stomach abated a little. "Hey, no harm done, ya? You were upset. I shouldn't have made such a stupid comment in the first place."

The twitch became a smile. And suddenly, her arms were around his neck and Wakka was struggling to stay in his chair.

"Whoa, whoa! Don't get any ideas, man! Just because I say I like you doesn't mean -"

"Friend," Rikku sang happily. "Friend, friend, friend,"

"I prefer women who are... Older." He said, solemnly allowing the girl to unlatch herself and drop on her feet.

She pouted. "You gotta thing for Lulu, don't you?"

"Now don't you go start spreading nonsense now -"

"Oh, man, why do all the guys prefer Lulu? How 'bout Auron over there? Does he like her too? What's she got that I don't? I'm gonna go ask her." And barely pausing to take a breath, she pranced off to do just that.

Wakka watched Lulu expertly fend off Rikku's inquiries and felt an odd floating sensation somewhere in his chest. He might have been interested to know that it was a close relative of contentment.

A commotion broke out at the other end of the bridge as Rikku's brother babbled excitedly in Al Bhed. "They found Yuna!" Tidus cried.

Wakka felt his grin coming back. The day was looking up at last.


End file.
